Update: I was contacted by a person claiming to be legal council for Team BAMF that requested the following be noted:

Dear Mr. King:

I do hope that this letter finds you well. I go by the handle of (name withheld by request), as it is necessary for me to separate my working life from my Android life. I am a member of Team BAMF as well as their legal counsel. Recently we became aware of an article written by you reviewing BAMF Paradigm, one of our premier ROMs, on the HTC Evo. However we have never designed or created ROMs to be run on an HTC Evo and learned that this purported version of our work was wrongfully, without attribution, created by a Team D.I.R.T. While we did design BAMF Paradigm with the intention of it being ported to other devices, this requires our permission and proper attribution to our work. All of the “neat features in the BAMF settings, such as built-in ad blocking, CPU clocking, granular auto-brightness adjustment, and many options for the soft keys;” are a result of our numerous hours of hard work and creation. Team D.I.R.T has appropriated our work and are currently passing it off as their own. The numerous issues you have mentioned with the ROM are caused because the ROM was built for the Galaxy Nexus and not the Evo. Specifically your confusion over why the changelog lists a version 2.2 when it is version 1.1 is due to the fact that the changelog was copy and pasted directly from our website with very few (if any) changes.

We respectfully request that you put a disclaimer in the beginning of your article explaining that Team D.I.R.T released this ROM without attribution or permission from the creators of BAMF Paradigm and the BAMF Settings Team BAMF and that any and all issues noted in the article are caused by the porting of Team BAMF’s work over to the Evo.

We understand that the error of attribution is not of your doing and appreciate your assistance in rectifying the situation. If you have any further questions please free to contact me or please visit our website www.teambamf.net

Sincerely,

–(name withheld by request)

Update #2:

Dear Mr. King:
Just wanted to give you an update. The issues have been ironed out. Team DIRT has created an unofficial port of Team BAMF’s BAMF Paradigm to the Evo 4G. We wish them the best with getting the vendor files to work and other issues with the port fixed so that HTC Evo users can enjoy all of the benefits of BAMF Paradigm brought to them by Team DIRT. Please feel free to update your article with that information as well.

Original article follows:

Team D.I.R.T’s BAMF Paradigm is an Android Jelly Bean ROM for the original HTC EVO 4G that’s close to the front of the pack for fully utilizing the phone’s hardware. However, is not quite the bug-free experience I’ve come to expect from D.I.R.T. productions.

First off, it’s got a working rear-facing camera, which has been a pretty big hurdle in EVO 4G development. While it only appears to go up to 3MP at the moment, that’s probably a temporary thing, as there are rumors of an 8MP fix floating around if they’re using Preludedrew’s camera code.

It lists DRM/Hulu as working, although I was not able to get that to function, and Hulu said DRM was specifically not working.

The ROM itself has some neat features in the BAMF settings, such as built-in ad blocking, CPU clocking, granular auto-brightness adjustment, and many options for the soft keys; however, there’s no need on the EVO 4G to have soft keys unless something is broken with your digitizer. They list that you can turn the softkeys off, but there doesn’t seem to be an option in the three pages of visual settings it offers.

One of the somewhat confusing things about this ROM is that its version is 1.2. The changelog lists it as BAMF 1.1 and claims that it’s updated to BAMF v2.2. I question the versioning and the changelog. I downloaded the August 18 version (with a build.prop in the archive dated 8/18), which is the only one available.

Camera works. It always uses flash so you can’t take pictures of chrome things

From the official buglist, we have no 4G/WiMAX, USB mount storage doesn’t work (although ADB does, so no biggie), no front facing camera, no MMS for Sprint users, no flashlight, and stereo bluetooth doesn’t work.

It might seem I’m being overly negative about this ROM, but I’m not. It’s new and shiny and pretty amazing where it’s at and how it performs running an operating system that’s two versions and a year newer than the last officially supported one.

I’m assuming we’ll see bug fixes and fairly large leaps in performance and functionality in this ROM shortly, or someone will tell me I somehow installed the wrong thing. We’ll see.

Considering that Jelly Bean looked to be a pipe dream, as we never had a fully-functioning Ice Cream Sandwich-based ROM on the original EVO 4G, this makes me very happy about the future of the EVO 4G.

I don’t think it’s a ROM I could use daily yet, but it’s close. I’ll be keeping an eye on this, and if you’re on an EVO 4G you should too.

About the Author

Paul King may be the last remaining editor at Pocketables. His articles are generally about HTC lines of products and all the neat things you can do with them. When not writing about them, he's riding a motorcycle, spending time with his wife, kids, and cats, or working as an IT manager at a film production company.

Glad to see Jelly Bean ROMs coming out for the EVO 4G that have some camera functionality working. Does video capture work at all?

I might throw this on my wife’s EVO 4G, but she does value stability. If this ROM has working camera, then maybe JMZ Taylor’s will soon too.

Simon Belmont

Oh yeah. Also forgot to ask this.

Does Google Now work on this ROM? I’ve been singing the praises of that to my wife and she’s interested in trying it out.

Paul E King

It’s on there and works like it does on my 4G LTE, although I’m told that it’s supposed to have audio feedback and I don’t hear that on either of ’em.

Has the cards, etc…

Simon Belmont

I think there’s a setting to turn that on or off, maybe. That’s cool that it at least works on the EVO 4G though.

My wife can live with a 3MP camera for a while. Video capture is important though.

Paul E King

video capture doesn’t crash, but it doesn’t appear to do anything. I had not tested that.

Simon Belmont

Thanks for looking into that. I’ll probably just hold off until video gets worked out.

Maybe another camcorder app would work. That seems to do the trick on other ROMs, sometimes.

Jmagnt7

Thanks for the review Paul!
Was on vacation for a bit.. Any stable JB roms for lte yet? Seems like there are more for the og 4g currently. Lol.
And I was under the impression ics to jb wasn’t as difficult? Sure lots of work but ya know what I mean.

Currently still on Viper4G! Is good stuff. But kang CM10 or Cynogen would be sweet!

Any word on this would be awesome!
Thanks for all your insight and help!

Paul E King

I’m told Deck’s CM10 is pretty much there. Just downloaded the 8/20 release.

It seemed almost perfect on the 8/9 release, but the email refused to work with my exchange server.

I’ll be trying it out tonight (have to use the phone as a phone today) and let you know, but it was working as far as I could tell before.

**EDIT: all links removed, go to the freenode link below as that’s how it’s supposed to be distributed.

Simon Belmont

Is there a thread at xda for Deck’s work? I remember using Deck’s ROMs on my venerabled Hero.

I do searches for Deck’s CM10 ROMs and only come up with the EVO 4G LTE. Thanks for the links above though.

Paul E King

There is no thread, I have been informed that Deck also does not want links to the thing posted directly so I’m going to edit my previous post.

But is his ROM only for the EVO 4G LTE or does he have one for the EVO 4G too? I don’t have an EVO 4G LTE.

Jmagnt7

Thanks Paul! Will take a look later tonight or tomorrow. I had read the kang project was out and ready but the list of devices went even close to htc… Anything. So was lil worried.
I’ll try decks out. Thanks again for the help and clarification!

@simon
Cm7 is pretty darn good. And yes ics and jb will probably never fully be perfectly stable enough for the casual user on og evo4g – supersonic :-(
But hey just the fact there are a few working (pretty darn good too) ics/jb roms for the supersonic is pretty awesome. Shows the love and more importantly capabilities of our old beloved devices. Imagine how far the new evo lte will go!

Simon Belmont

Haha. Agreed.

Believe me I know. My old Hero still has developers working on it. They have a Jelly Bean ROM booting on it. That’s nearly 3 year old hardware running the latest Android OS.

Meh. I don’t understand the push to get Jelly Bean on the Supersonic. And, unfortunately, a lot of these ICS ROMs hardly make it past the inital announcement, that I’ve seen. There are a few big players, but then the choosing gets slim when you want Netflix, a working camera and 4G WiMAX. Seems CM7 is still the best ROM for those who use the Supersonic as their daily, and only phone.

Simon Belmont

Pretty much why I haven’t flashed a CM9 or CM10 ROM over to my wife’s EVO 4G. Stability and use of the camera are paramount to her.

4G she could probably live without since Wi-Fi is so prevalent. Anyway, I keep tabs on these newer ROMs because I like to tinker, and I will “graduate” my wife’s EVO 4G to them when they’re more stable, if that happens.

Paul E King

The problem is the development is over and done with most of the developers, and until a kernel/camera/etc comes out that fixes the problems, there’s not much most of them can do.

Most people we consider developers edit programs, tweak properties, change themes, add functionality. They don’t compile their own kernels, or write a driver from scratch.

The reason a lot of these things pop up and you never see anything else from them is because they’re stuck waiting for the 2 or 3 people to write the kernel modules, drivers, etc. Sort of like on the 3D it all hinged on two people.

As there’s absolutely no reason to work on ICS when JB is there, all the ICS work is pretty much going out the window.

Simon Belmont

Exactly. Which is why we’ve never seen functional front facing camera since ICS and then JB were released. :(

JB is the wave of the future. That is, until Key Lime Pie (or whatever they call it) comes out. ;)

Sweet. I will definitely be looking forward to a Deck’s CM10 for the EVO 4G.

Jmagnt7

Read the update to this article.. Dang:-P
No wonder a few things seemed little off to you Paul. Wasn’t even supposed to be on evo4g! Looks like team dirt may be in a little bit of trouble if they continue to copy and distribute others work as their own.. Ouch.
Still cool works on evo4g but I can see how this sorta thing causes problems for sure.
Thanks for the updated material

Paul E King

I’m hoping it’s a simple mistake. Got a letter and a tweet in to the address I have for Mazda and hoping that’s just an error, oversight, mistake, missed connection, etc.

I’ve never personally seen a DIRT production 1) have issues like this one 2) have legal counsel contact me for incorrect usage/attribution.

Oh, wow, another legal snafu. I can’t blame Team BAMF though, if this is true.

I hope this can be worked out. Taking credit for someone else’s work is work wrong.

Simon Belmont

Blah. Take the second “work” out.

I wish I could edit my posts. Haha.

Paul E King

I think if you’re getting down to brass tacks, the issue is simply they although it’s portable, they needed to ask for permission and didn’t (according to that email).

As the ROM says “BAMF” all over it, pretty sure that DIRT’s not claiming that part was invented by them. I think they have been probably credited for that properly – IE I don’t think it was stolen, but… seems it may have been a case of “I would have loaned you the car if you asked” but no idea…

eh, hope everything works out.
These things seem to have to happen on days when I’m down with allergies and allergy meds.

Great article as always dude! I will work on this tonight and see about fixing a few things like USB mount storage and MMS for sprint users for staticmaal! :)

I think you hit the nail on the head and said that it wasn’t what you’ve come to expect..hahahha

Thanks for all who are downloading this btw!!

Simon Belmont

We appreciate your hard work, Mazda. Both for the EVO 4G and EVO 3D.

Thanks! Cheers.

Simon Belmont

I hope that my above comment can still be counted as true. Considering the update on this article.

I hope both parties can work things out. Cheers.

Tony Gross

It’s great that the EVO 4g is still getting some love

Paul E King

OK, an update to my updates: It appears the big sticking point was that the word “unofficial” was not there and it looked like BAMF and DIRT were working together.

Looks like some clarification was done to the original developer thread. I could probably slap a line “unofficial port of BAMF’s cool settings” up somewhere in the top, but am going to leave things with the two updates up there for a bit.

To me, with the emails I have and the updates in the development section, it looks like there was a misunderstanding in how BAMF’s work could be used and attributed and no harm was intended.

So anyway, keep on rocking people.

Simon Belmont

Glad to hear things have been hashed out. I was hoping for a positive resolution.

Looks like they got one. Good deal.

Mike

Where there any updates to this seemingly fantastical Mod for the ol Evo 4G?